


I Tie My Life to Your Balloon & Let it Go

by redcheekdays



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Modern Thedas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3436064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcheekdays/pseuds/redcheekdays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Here's the thing: romance is an integral part of any well-rounded story. A lack thereof is also important, because it indicates something about your protagonist –"</p>
<p>"Urghh," Hawke declares, collapsing with fanfare onto the tabletop and making loud snoring noises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Tie My Life to Your Balloon & Let it Go

**Author's Note:**

> i made a modern!au hawke/varric [mix](http://redcheekdays.tumblr.com/post/111358711708) by mistake & then this happened. also, wikipedia's list of solitaire card games is incredible. set in early act iii, & really it barely counts as an AU, just play along.

"You complete _ass_ ," Hawke exclaims, slamming her drink down to punch Varric in both shoulders at once. He's laughing too hard at her to speak, which is the only time he doesn't talk, actually, and – well, they both know she isn't really mad. He wouldn't have _cut off a lock of her hair_ to _sell to admirers_ in the first place if that was something she'd get genuinely upset over.

Still, it is outrageous, and Hawke is very little besides a believer in keeping up pretenses. It's the whole foundation of her friendship with Varric, in point of fact.

She grins. "Alright, then. How much did you make? I think I deserve at _least_ a 60% cut of the profits." She notices belatedly that the hand not back at her glass is resting on Varric's arm, and pulls it away.

He wipes a tear – a real goddamn tear of mirth – from his eye. "Now, don't minimize the effort I put into first obtaining and then marketing such a relic. From the Champion herself! It was a full day's worth of hard work."

She forgets to grouse about the faux title in favor of specifics – specifically, who to hound next for a free drink and/or favor. "How _did_ you get it? I'm not exactly a heavy sleeper. Did you get Carver to do it? It was Carver, wasn't it. Carver _would_."

Varric chuckles. "Nah, kid's got no subtlety. It was Rivaini, and normally I wouldn't name my conspirators so easily, but I think she'd admit to it herself. She was practically skipping about it."

Hawke gasps loudly in dramatic indignation, clutching her chest as though she'd ever worn pearls in her life. "Isabela?! Oh, I feel so betrayed. I'm wounded, honestly. I might go give her a piece of my mind about that."

He shifts in his seat a little. "Right, a piece of your mind. A piece of something else, too, maybe?"

"I have many sins, Varric, but you know that kissing and proceeding to tell is not one of them."

Varric scowls less than wholeheartedly. "How am I supposed to write a riveting epic about you if I don't know the juicy details?" he asks, as if Hawke has _requested_ he write such a thing.

"Use your imagination," she winks. It's one of her favorite, private things, imagining Varric imagining her with a not-dwarf-shaped someone. Sometimes she imagines Varric imagining her with a _particular_ dwarf-shaped someone – but, no. Mostly she saves that one for emergencies.

She drinks as he rolls his eyes, flicks her on the wrist. "Besides, you know we're just friends. Now."

He eyes her over the rim of his glass, suddenly wary. "You ok? You don't... wanna talk about it, do you?"

Hawke laughs. "Mother hen territory, Varric. Shh. Stop pecking. Everything's fantastic."

He scoffs unconvincingly, muttering into his beer. "I just wanted the newest gossip."

"Mm hm." She stands to leave. "Don't worry," she says, patting him on the shoulder and leaning down to kiss his cheek. "I know who to come to when I need to be doted on."

Varric's hands stutter against the table, but she's already gone.

xxx

Hawke has trouble remembering exactly how she and Varric became so close and has, for the most part, settled on it being one of those things that was cosmically unavoidable. In fairness, she spent the better part of a year viciously trampling Kirkwall's many objections to her presence, and she doesn't think about it because not thinking about it is rather the _point_ but the more demons and abominations that fell at her feet, the further she felt from grief. Grief, that terrifying-looking cloud threatening oblivion that hovered (still hovers) constantly at the edges of her horizon. But one day Hawke blinked slowly awake, as if from a particularly hungry and bloody haze, and found herself leaning a little too heavily on the handsome dwarf beside her.

Looking back – which, again, she doesn't, ok – it probably makes sense that Varric worries about her a little.

She sort of hates him, though. No – not always or even often, and not for the mothering, which she rather – anyway. He flirts so meaninglessly? Or – it's that he's so incessantly charming it's hard to tell what he's really thinking. Or the hypocrisy in the space between _tell me all your secrets so I can sell a book about you_ and _I'll tell you any story except the one that means the most_.

Well. Hypocrisy might not be the only appropriate word; she's mostly lacking in indignation and offense, but there's plenty of – something else. It chafes, when she allows the thought.

Hawke wonders occasionally if she even _is_ close with Varric, or if it just looks that way from the outside. Their banter, their back-and-forth give-and-take: it’s so effortless, so almost rote that it sometimes feels like moss. No roots. Maybe Hawke is the problem; maybe she’s so cavernously empty that if she let him breach her defenses, she’d just crumble.

Sometimes crumbling feels preferable.

Nevermind. Most of the time they're on even ground, the way Hawke likes it. It's hard to resist Varric's endless ear, his willingness to imbibe everything she gives up to him. She wants to make him drunk on her, waits most nights til he gets that particular gleam in his eye that means he’s already rewriting what’s happening, turning it into a scene, seeing his name & her’s in golden lights all up and down the city.

_Hawke: The Champion. By Varric Tethras._ She prefers his version of events, to be sure – not that she’s read anything he’s written about her. Not that she’s snuck repeatedly into his suite to read through the notebooks carefully arranged on his shelf. She’s convinced, is the point, just by the way his mouth forms her name, that what he does on paper with her life is better than the original.

xxx

"You know, I can’t see how you’re not in love with me."

"Oh, ho! It’s that kind of night, is it?" Varric sloshes more whiskey into their glasses and raises his in a mocking toast.

Hawke salutes right back and drinks. "I mean, even if you only took into account the sheer number of gas station attendants I’ve accidentally saved from demons."

Varric’s laugh comes out as a fucking _giggle_ before he subdues it into his normal dry chuckle, and Hawke knows she has him caught for the rest of the evening. She grins, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling of Varric’s strangely redolent suite.

"Is this your typical pick-up line?" He shifts in his chair, mimicking her sprawl. "How do hapless gas station attendants repay your… shit, your..."

"Christ, you’re ellipsising. How drunk are you?"

Varric is completely affronted. "Me? You’re the one who was already three sheets to the wind by the time you barged in here."

"Three sheets…"

"Corff from downstairs looked _surly_ about it. More surly than usual."

"That phrase doesn’t make any sense."

"So what happened, hm? Are you going to tell me, or not?"

It’s not even a particularly good story. That’s why she’s however-many sheets to whichever wind. It’s also why she came at all. As it turns out, Varric agrees.

"You’re right, that’s a terrible story. No sense of rising action, terrible execution of the climax, and the ending, just." He mimes an explosion. "In pieces. Awful."

"I’m always right." She’s lying down, now? Yes, this is the sofa, and – oh! Varric’s lap is soft, and he’s looking down at her with one of his softer smiles.

She feels warm and soft and this is good, this is why she came here.

"Oddly enough, that's mostly true. So why’d you come to tell me a no-good story? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to collect your anecdotes the way you collect shiny pieces of trash–"

Hawke snorts and closes her eyes.

"–But I can’t imagine why you entrust them to me."

"Because," she says, slurring a bit. "You know how to turn – make all the stupid shit I do into something – _good_. Something worthwhile. Like I have a plan, or," she gesticulates wildly, "you know, the tiniest bit of sense."

She sighs and nuzzles into his side, her world going grey at the edges.

Varric is quiet. He says, softly, "Glad to do it. I’m… happy to help."

Hawke mumbles indistinctly, and – that might be him carrying her to bed – she feels something at her temple, and a pressure lifting from the mattress, and then she’s asleep.

xxx

"Hawke, hang in there! I'll get you out of here!"

She’s surrounded by shades, swirling her staff viciously, but his voice cuts through. She realizes she’s heaving breaths, and her skin feels hot the way it does when she’s about to fall. She clenches her eyes shut and summons a merciless chain of lightning, snaking it through each of her enemies, watching as they fall.

Hawke leans heavily on her staff, catching her breath as Varric runs over to her. It was supposed to be a simple cover job, the kind she shouldn’t be doing anymore, the kind that never actually stays simple.

"Did Isabela get away, with," she pants, "whatever she came for?"

Varric grimaces. "I think so. Saw her and Fenris split toward the docks, as planned. And we got them all," he says as he gestures at the dark and, more importantly, empty streets surrounding them.

The good thing about shades: no clean-up required.

"Excellent!" Hawke reaches out, leaning a hand on Varric’s shoulder and grinning suddenly. "Ah yes, here comes the post-fight exhilaration. What do you want to do? Drinks? Street race? A fun game of, oh, I don’t know." She licks her lips. "Twister?"

Varric coughs, or wheezes, reaching like he’s going to punch her in the shoulder. His hand falls onto her waist instead. He might be a bit winded, too.

"Don’t – ha. As long as you don’t die on me, we can do any of those things." He shakes his head, smiling ruefully up at her. "Take it easy on an old man, Hawke. That was a close call."

Her hands are suddenly fists in the collar of his leather jacket, bringing her face even closer to his. "Did that shake you up enough to get you to agree to _Twister_ , Varric?" she asks delightedly. "You’ve insisted for years you would never. ‘I’m colorblind,’ you said. ‘Natural disadvantage due to length of limbs,’ you said."

He chuckles weakly. "Pretty sure I’ve been shook up since the day I met you, Hawke."

She laughs, a bright noise thrust into the small space of air between them, and kisses him soundly on the mouth. She does it quickly and without thinking, as she does most things that don’t involve Varric, and it feels like a mistake or like instinct. She’s never been good at determining the difference.

He’s startled by it, his free hand clutching quickly at her hip to steady himself. Then his arm wraps around her like they’ve done this a hundred times, and he turns his face up, kissing her back. Hawke is so surprised that she takes a messy step backward.

He follows.

Minutes – how many, she’s not sure – pass and a lone car whizzes by, careening to avoid them and honking angrily. Hawke breaks from Varric, laughing but feeling wild about it.

Varric looks a little wild, too. Wild and lost. He smiles, a little tightly, and Hawke can see him flexing his fingers in a nervous motion.

She drags a hand through her hair. "That was–! I liked that. Did you like that? Nevermind. I’m going to – I’m going to go buy a lottery ticket!" She laughs again, and it comes out much too breathlessly for her liking. "Drinks later?" she calls over her shoulder as she turns away, leaving before he can answer.

She ducks down the nearest alley. The neon lights at the end promise inebriation, and he doesn’t follow.

xxx

Hawke shows up at The Hanged Man the next day for their weekly Wicked Grace game. She swings into her chair, as usual, and waves at Corff for a beer, as usual. She grins a greeting at Varric and collects the hand already laid out for her, settling back in her chair with a gleam in her eye. As usual.

"Hello then, Varric. Let’s see," she says, rearranging her cards. "I’m in."

Varric has been peering slightly more closely at her than normal, but gives no other indication that last they met they had their tongues in each others’ mouths. "You’re always in."

"Too right. God, you sound glum. Rough day?"

"Glum? I’m practically chipper," he shoots back, and his grin is real and wicked. Hawke’s stomach curls warmly. "Though I do have to admit I’m disappointed you ran off last night. I was looking forward to Twister."

"Oh, really," she says, arching an eyebrow at him. He’s teasing her? He’s teasing her. She refuses to blink. "Did you have to settle for solitaire? Poor Varric."

"A lot of solitaire. Long Braid. Backbone. Laying Siege."

Hawke does not choke on her beer. "Sham Battle? Puss in the Corner. _Big Ben_ ," she winks. She takes a drink as he snickers softly, and pauses, fingers tapping a pattern on her glass. "Pleasant Dreams."

Varric leans forward, casually, putting his elbows on the table and locking eyes with her. "And Intrigue. A long, solitary night. I’m all in, by the way."

He wins the round, because Hawke is rather distracted, but she’s feeling oddly buoyant and plays a cutthroat game after that. Well, also she cheats, but she figures it doesn’t count if Varric lets her get away with it.

Eventually the evening winds down. Hawke’s won the last two rounds because Varric keeps _eyeing_ her over his cards, paying less attention to them than is prudent; she neither knows what to do about this nor wants it to continue.

"Don’t be boring," she says, slanting her eyes in his direction. "If you’re not going to _play_ , what’s the point?"

He smiles, but it’s a little off, like he’s unsure of it. "Alright, then." He starts to gather the cards and put them away.

"What’s wrong with you?"

Varric purses his lips. "There’s nothing wrong with me."

"Oh, fuck off. So there’s something wrong with _me?"_ She realizes vaguely that her voice is getting louder, but, shit. She’s frustrated now. This isn’t – she didn’t know how this evening was going to go but it certainly started better than it’s finishing.

"Hawke." Varric shakes his head. "Let’s just–"

"No, I asked a question. What’s wrong with me? You know, right? What my problem is. You see _everything_ , don’t you? So: _fix me_ ," she growls. She’s sprawled sarcastically in her chair now, pushing at him because she can, because the spool that started loosening last night is spilling all over, making her insides feel like a minefield.

He stares. "There’s nothing wrong with you, except how much you like _thinking_ there is."

She laughs, incredulously. "God! You know what, Varric, you’re a piece of work. You tag along, watching me make a mess of my life, and you write it all down in your little notebooks, but you don’t – you don’t _help_ me. You don’t make it _better_."

"What? Look, can we go yell about this upstairs?"

"No!" Hawke shouts. She stands up. She can tell by the way Varric is stubbornly not looking around and the unusually quiet bar that people are staring. She doesn’t care. "Do you even give a shit about the Hawke outside your stories?"

"Of course I do! I – and since when – you’ve read them?"

"Of course I have," she parrots back at him. "Aren’t vanity and pride my strong suits? You turn my life all around, Varric, upside down, shake my pockets out til I’m your _special hero_. Of course I read that. Of course I want to _be_ that."

He looks agonized, watching her back away from him.

"But I’m not," she says. "I’m not."

The cool breeze outside hits her face like a slap, and she gasps it into her lungs. Perhaps she made a mess of that.

As usual.

xxx

A week goes by. Then another, and besides everything else, Hawke is _bored_.

There have been a few odd jobs. She hires a maid for Fenris' still-decrepit mansion, just to mess with him. (He looked like he wanted to punch her, then like he didn't, then like he didn't know what to do at all. She left him to stew in the feeling. Welcome to freedom!) She sneaks into Carver's dingy, cop-salary flat and leaves him dozens of strawberry rhubarb pies, enough to cover every flat surface.

She picks up her phone, types _i didn’t mean it_ to Varric, deletes it, sets her phone down. Repeats.

Isabela comes over, trying to get her to do – anything – but Hawke is bitterly sarcastic and generally no fun. Isabela leaves in a huff but comes back later that night with three bottles of wine, three enormous hats, and Merrill.

"My girls, my darling girls," Hawke says soppily after reaching the bottom of her bottle, jumping up from her chair in a sudden frenzy of affection and squeezing between them to press messy kisses to their foreheads. "Don’t ever leave me."

Isabela groans and shoves her off, laughing, but Merrill makes a fluttery hand-motion at her and says, "Of course not! Where would we go? Oh! On Isabela’s boat, perhaps. But I think it would be better with you there, too. Don’t you?" she asks, turning to Isabela.

"Oh, kitten. I’d go anywhere with you, and with Hawke, too. But," she says, poking Hawke in the ribs until she squirms, "she’d go stir-crazy without Varric, and I can’t have that on my ship. Drive everyone mad, she would."

"You don’t have a boat," Hawke sighs. She's not sure how Isabela even _knows_ , but she apparently does, so it’s not worth sulking over.

"Ship," Isabela corrects.

"Why can’t you want a motorcycle, or a fancy car, like a normal person? Who wants a pirate ship anymore?"

Isabela throws up her hands. "I’m romantic that way. And anyhow, we’re here because _you’re_ a romantic, too, only you blew it."

Hawke groans, slouching further down into the sofa. "Stop talking about my failures."

"Never," Isabela chirrups.

"Oh, da’len," Merrill says, and ruffles her hair. "It will be all right, I think." They’re quiet after that, the wine taking effect, but they snuggle in on themselves, a lump of girly limbs on the couch. Hawke finds Merrill reaching an arm across her to find Isabela’s hand, sees Isabela smile without opening her eyes, and for some reason this small thing quiets the incessant buzzing inside her.

She shifts a little, rubbing at a crick in her neck.

If _Isabela_ can do it. She hesitates on the word. If Isabela can do – love. Love-type things. Hawke sighs quietly and Isabela, who Hawke suddenly realizes has been watching her, whispers, "Shh, sweet thing. You’re overthinking this."

"How did it happen?" Hawke whispers back. She doesn’t know quite what she’s asking. "How did you…"

"It just did? There wasn’t anything to _allow_." She pauses, and Hawke can see her trying to form the words. "Being free can be lonely, and it feels after a while like that’s the way it has to be." She shakes her head. "But it doesn’t. Not if…. What I mean is, if someone makes you feel nice, and _not_ lonely, and you don’t have to compromise anything to keep feeling that way – isn’t learning how to accept that the most freeing thing you can do?"

Hawke isn’t particularly good at handling sudden realizations, so she murmurs, "Yes, you’re very brave," and receives a breathy laugh in response. She means it, though, she’s pretty sure. Maybe because she’s trapped and warm, Merrill cuddled against her back and Isabela curling now into her shoulder, their joined hands forming a loop around her – but it feels right.

xxx

The next morning Hawke picks up her phone, types _i didn’t mean it_ to Varric, hits send, and sets the phone down. She stands, already feeling the urge to run out the door and anywhere but here.

Her shoes are half-tied when the phone beeps at her; she nearly trips on the laces in her hurry to see what it says.

_Yes you did_ , Varric writes.

She stares at the screen, biting her lip. She doesn’t know what to say to that, because he’s right. Fortunately –

_Are you done moping now? Come over._

The period makes it sound very firm. Hawke likes it. _i know it’s before noon_ , she writes back, _but to be clear: is this a booty call?_

_Last time I made innuendos, you yelled at me_

_correlation, not causation. i love innuendos!_

_Look, just come over_ , he sends. Then: _You’ve missed some stories you really should’ve been here for_.

When she gets there, Varric’s suite is messier than Hawke can ever remember it being. She’s seen the rumpled sheets before, but his notebooks and journals, laying open and _everywhere_ , covering his desk and most other surfaces, too – that's less normal.

She’s never read his journals, but she’s very familiar with them. They live in his jacket pocket.

"Hawke!" Varric says in greeting. "Hi. I’ve been," and he gestures vaguely at the room, "doing some research."

She sighs in earnest. "You said you had _stories_. If I'd known you were going to recite history lessons at me, I wouldn't have bothered."

"It might be history you're interested in. Alright," he says, laughing fondly at her skeptical expression. "Maybe not. But I've been thinking, see, about tropes and archetypes and why I've been so utterly stupid."

"Oh good, this conversation is looking up."

"Thanks. Here's the thing: romance is an integral part of any well-rounded story. A lack thereof is also important, because it indicates something about your protagonist –"

"Urghh," Hawke declares, collapsing with fanfare onto the tabletop and making loud snoring noises.

"You're going to make this difficult on me, huh? Of course you are." Varric yanks her out of her chair with a grin, tugging backwards until they’ve fallen onto the couch with Hawke in his lap. She laughs, the sound tripping out of her. He has her attention.

"I thought Hawke just hadn't found what she wanted, yet, but – fool that I am – I wasn't paying attention." He hesitates, then tucks part of her hair behind her ear. She bites her lip, wanting both for him to _stop talking_ and also to get to the point, already.

"And then," Varric says, with a sly edge to it, "you kissed me."

They look at each other for a moment, and Hawke leans a little closer to say, "Sorry, was that you narrating aloud? Or are you telling me about a life-changing moment?"

There's a dry heat in his answering laugh that goes straight to Hawke's head. His hands travel up from her wrists to cup her face. "There's one more thing I want to say, before – while you're still maybe listening. Something else it took me too long to figure out."

"Mm hm?" Hawke murmurs. She traces the collar of his shirt, over his shoulders, down his arms. She rarely sees him out of his jacket, and fuck – she didn't realize just how incredible his arms are. They are very close and very distracting.

"Do you know _why_ I write about you?"

She stills, looking back at him. "What?"

Varric waits.

"...No," she says.

He traces her lip with his thumb. "I just need you to know, so we're on the same page. When I write you down, it's not to change you or own you or mold you. It's to keep you _alive_. Because somewhere along the line, you became the most important thing in my life. So: I do what I can. I keep you alive."

"That." Hawke swallows. "Is that some strange dwarven superstition?"

Varric shrugs. "It hasn't failed yet."

She kisses him, then, or he kisses her, because they're alive, and it's warm and welcoming and soft and perfect. It doesn't feel like a mistake at all. And when they resurface, later, Hawke with her head in the crook of his arm and a hand idly grazing his chest:

"Varric?"

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Hawke."

"So. Is this the story, now? You and me?"

He chuckles, the sound rumbling through her. "Yes. I'm going to have to rewrite the whole damn book."


End file.
